The present invention pertains to an integrated electronic coin acceptor and auditor for a coin operated telephone. The integrated coin acceptor validates coins, monitors money collection events at the coin telephone and transmits information to a central location.
Coin operated telephone stations are interfaced with a central office by tip, ring and ground lines. When the handset is lifted off the hook, the central office supplies a very small DC loop current, 23 milliamperes (mA) minimum, which is available to the coin operated telephone for use as a source of power. When the handset is on-hook, the recommended practice is for a coin operated telephone to draw virtually no current from the phone line.
The deregulation of the telephone industry forced payphone manufacturers to incorporate a number of cost-saving electronic functions and features into their coin telephones. These new devices are known as "smart" payphones because they incorporate a chassis containing computerized circuitry to perform a multiplicity of functions not performed by regular or "dumb" payphone units. One of the functions typically included is the monitoring, counting and recording of all cash transactions.
Several approaches have been used to address the demand for additional payphone functions and features within the constraints of low power operation. In some cases, an internal battery is used to supply additional power. Other coin operated telephones have simply not incorporated a full range of advanced functions. Yet other prior art coin telephones draw several milliamps of current when the handset is on-hook to power various functions, thus violating the recommended practice and robbing power from other payphones attached to the system.
The operation and maintenance of coin-operated telephones is expensive. One factor that contributes to this expense is the cost to collect the money from the coin telephones, which typically differs from telephone to telephone since it can depend greatly on the telephone's location. Any measures that can be taken to reduce the frequency with which the collections must be made can contribute significantly to the profitability of operating coin telephones.
One way to reduce the cost of removing the receipts from a particular coin telephone is to minimize the collection frequency. However, reducing collection frequency beyond a certain point results in lost receipts, since the telephone cannot be operated once the collection box is full. Furthermore, since the rate at which a given telephone becomes filled with coins can vary significantly from time to time, a time duration that is adequate between collection visits at one time may be too long at another time and may result in an unnecessary visit at a third time.
The most desired function offered by the smart payphone units is their ability to accurately count and make available a record of all deposited and collected coinage. The auditors keep track of the amount of money collected and send the collection information to a central location which utilizes the information to schedule collections. Some systems include equipment and software at the central location to poll the remote auditors at predetermined time intervals. In other systems, each coin telephone auditor transmits audit information whenever a user places a call. Several Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC's) have invested in systems that use collection prediction software, such as "PDAS", to provide data management of coin collections. The ability to accurately monitor coin collections enables telephone companies to minimize or avoid the substantial economic losses experienced as a result of skimming and the like.
There are many types of telephone auditors, but all of them suffer from one or more of several drawbacks. For example, some prior art auditors require extra communication lines to carry the information, while others require additional power connections. In addition, many prior art stand-alone auditors require substantial modifications to existing coin telephones to enable the audit information to be recorded when a user makes a call. Further, the prior art auditors transmit information while the handset is on-hook, and when a user picks up the handset, there is no dial tone and thus the user is prevented from making a call.
Furthermore, while smart payphones including audit functions provide advantages not provided by older, dumb payphones, their adoption and use presents many problems. For example, many smart payphone units are not as strong, durable and trouble-free as the dumb payphone units they are designed to replace. In addition, the electronic chassis used in the smart payphone is many times more costly to manufacture, install and maintain than a dumb chassis. Further, special skills are required to install, maintain and service smart payphones that are not comparable to the skills required and currently exercised by service personnel who maintain dumb payphone units. Yet further, some smart payphone units are more complicated to use, sometimes causing customer dissatisfaction, whereas the dumb sets, as a result of their long usage, are familiar and user-friendly. Most importantly, the RBOC's have a substantial capital investment in standard or dumb payphones in use today, and therefore wish to extend their potential life expectancy for a number of years. Many of the RBOC's cannot justify abandoning their standard, dumb payphones to adopt and use more costly, yet to be paid for, smart telephones.
Thus, the incorporation of a simple and inexpensive coin auditor into a dumb-chassis of a payphone is highly desirable. It also is desirable to provide a simple, inexpensive electronic coin acceptor with audit capability for connection to a dumb set, or to a smart set that may lack audit capability.